The largest gathering of Alaska Natives kicked off on Thursday with a rousing message to stay united in the face of challenges to Native rights.

The annual Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention has drawn thousands to Anchorage for three days of meetings at the Egan Center. On opening day, delegates heard from AFN President Julie Kitka, Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) and state and federal officials on the need to work together to solve common problems. Jobs, education and health were high on the agenda.

But it was an address from Jackie Johnson, the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), that drove the point home. Johnson, a member of Alaska's Tlingit Tribe, said she was speaking from the heart when she noted the state's indigenous people were deeply divided into two camps: traditional tribal governments and for-profit corporations.

"In recent years, we've been seeing the increasing friction between
our tribal governments and corporations," she said.
"But at the end of the day, these are merely two sides of our
own selves, two elements that are absolutely critical to our
survival, two structures that must have shared goals if we
are to survive as distinct people."

As a former tribal council member and a sitting member of
the board of directors of a regional corporation, Johnson
acknowledged that tribes and corporations have "fundamentally
different goals."
"Yet let there be no mistake, we need both voices to
fully protect the interest of our people," she said.

The remarks served to highlight a legislative proposal to change
how Alaska's 220-plus tribes receive federal funds. Sen. Ted Stevens
(R-Alaska), the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations
Committee, wants to redirect tribal money to the state or
regional organizations -- perhaps the corporations -- because he says
not every village can expect to have their own justice system
or housing departments, particularly when times are tight.

The proposal, contained in riders to appropriations bills,
has sparked concern among Native leaders and their advocates.
It didn't help when Stevens, speaking to the Alaska media, said the Native
sovereignty movement threatened the state.

"You are self-governing, self-determining peoples living in
tribes throughout Alaska and that poses no threat to the state,"
said Myra Munson, an attorney whose work for Alaska Natives earned
her this year's Denali Award, AFN's highest honor for non-Natives. "It poses no threat
to the non-Native citizens of this state."

Many Natives feel the push to change how they receive services is an attack on their
federal recognition. The Bush administration has been asked by Alaska
Republicans to reconsider the status of each tribe.
But Kitka said AFN would fight to keep the tribal question
separate from the funding one.

"We cannot afford to have anyone sit on the sidelines because nobody
can say it's a tribal problem, it's a non-profit problem, or it's
this or that," she said. "We going to need everybody's help. The only way
we're going to survive these challenges is if we pull together
and have the most united Native community we have ever had."

The unity theme was echoed by Johnson, who called on Native
leaders from the tribes and corporations to respond
to the funding issue by developing solutions of their own.
"If we let our tribal status be diminished or taken from us,
if we let others control or shape our governmental structures
and our relationship to the federal government,"
she told delegates, "I believe that every generation to come will look
back to this time with regret and shame."

"Indecision is not an option," she added. If we do not decide, others
will decide for us."